Carol's Chickens

This weekend we had my eldest son, Steve and his lovely bride to be in three weeks time, to stay for part of the weekend.

It was the first time they had seen the newest girls, Toffee and Emerald, and Peaches and Barley as they live in Cambridge and with wedding plans on the go haven’t had time to come down recently. It was also the first time they had seen the run since it’s been extended.

They said that my photos don’t do it justice and the newest girls were all more attractive than the photos show and the run is bigger and more interesting than the photos show.

That’s probably because it’s impossible to photograph the whole run with my, quite basic, camera and lack of skills.

Steve did say that I should leave the roof panels open when it rains as the run had got very dry during the hot weather and that I should also probably add some top soil. With constant poop picking the level of the soil had gone down quite a bit.

I took this on board and decided to leave the roof panels open last night when usually I would close them overnight.

We woke up at five o’clock to an almighty storm with crashes of thunder and heavy rain. At six o’clock I couldn’t hold back any longer and went out to close the panels. There was a lot of water.

The thunder and rain continued for three and a half hours. I have never known thunder go on so long but we are in a valley so we think the storm was trapped.

However as it is so hot at the moment that the run had dried out again by lunch time. On my way home before lunch I called in at a garden centre and they had five and a half litre bags of topsoil on offer at three bags for twelve pounds so I decided to buy them.

I tried lifting them and soon realised that I couldn’t manage. I got someone at the garden centre to put them in my van for me.

Back home my husband and I managed between us to get them on the sack truck and pull them one at a time to the top of the garden.

We got them into the run and emptied them. No wonder they were so heavy as the first bag of soil was damp but the next two were really wet.

I was going to spread the soil but my husband said we should leave it in heaps and let the girls have the fun of spreading it.

Some top soil for the run

The girls scratch around in it

It is soon spread out

I think it was probably a bit disappointing as there were no bugs in it so we dug up the soil and wood chip that has been scratched outside of the run and dumped that on top of the top soil.

This gave out to a frenzy of happy scratching and pecking and soon all the soil had been levelled for us. This also means the surface is damp for now which should be good for scratching in and help keep it cooler.

I think the girls appreciated it.

The bedtime line up is exactly the same every night. I always know where the girls are going to end up. They are such creatures of habit and have perfected their bedtime positions and now they stick to those positions every night.

Emerald in her bedtime position

Topaz and Sparkle in their bedtime position

Amber, Honey and Toffee in their bedtime position

Peaches and Barley in their position

This is the complete bedtime picture

I think there are reasons behind some of the choices. Emerald is bottom girl and the others don’t let her roost with them so she settled on the shoe box as it’s out of their way. it has now become her spot and she is always the first to roost in the evening and always goes straight the shoe box and never leaves it again. She always stands for a while before eventually sitting down. This may be because it’s so hot at the moment.

Some of the girls take up their places but come down again for a last top up of food and water and then return but never Emerald.

Toffee is usually next up and always quick to dose on her perch. Topaz and Sparkle are next and I think being heavier birds they prefer the flat surface of the cabinet. They occasionally used to try the perch but looked uncomfortable getting up and down from it and soon returned to the cabinet. They now just go straight to there.

Amber is next up followed a little later by Honey and they always sit together. Toffee, Honey and Amber seem to prefer the narrower perch.

Peaches and Barley are always last up. I think they enjoy being able to potter around on their own and being able to top up with food without competition. I think they like this perch because it’s away from the rest of the girls and they always sit together.

I once moved Peaches because she was looking stressed because she couldn’t get past the other girls to get to Barley. Once I put her next to Barley she settled happily. Since then they have always managed to get perched together, perhaps another reason they settle later.

This same routine takes place like clockwork every evening.

I have a flock of eight bantams in pairs of four breeds. I will give some information of each breed in the order that I got them.

Bantam vorwerks

I got my two bantam vorweks, Amber and Honey, in April 2013.

The vorwerks are a breed of chicken originating in Germany. A rare fowl, it has distinctive black and gold plumage with black head and tail and gold body.

In 1900 a poultry breeder called Oskar Vorwek began to create a medium sized fowl. It is said that he liked this plumage as it didn’t show the dirt. The chicks start off with the plumage colours in reverse.

In 1966 an American man called Wilmer Vorwerk developed an interest in the breed and he created the bantam version. This version is now the recognised version in America.

They are good layers of cream coloured eggs. They are hardy, adaptable, alert and active. They have a single comb and white earlobes.

Honey and Amber

This is Honey on the left and Amber on the right. I have chosen descriptive names for all my girls and these two were named for their gold colour.

They are friendly and inquisitive characters. If I crouch down they come running to me. If I am cleaning the coop they are there inside the coop watching my every move and chatting away to me.

They do have little spats with each other every now and again despite being inseparable most of the time.

As for the good egg laying, well Honey is a reasonably good egg layer, laying four or five eggs a week but Amber has never been good at laying eggs. She has had a real problem with egg laying right from the start and only ever laid two or three eggs a week at most and often soft shelled despite giving her limestone flour, crushed egg shells and cod liver oil. I have always felt that there is something wrong with her egg making machinery.

I am sure this isn’t typical of the breed though as I have always felt that Amber was sort of like the runt of the litter. She is noticeably smaller than Honey.

Amber is a feisty girl though and above Honey in the pecking order. She is full of chat and character.

Bantam silver and gold laced wyndottes

The wyndotte is named from a native tribe in New York State. It is one of the original American breeds developed in the 1800’s along with domeniques, plymouth rocks and rhode island reds.

The original wyndotte was the silver laced variety developed in New York in 1865. There are numerous different colours now.

Bantam wyndottes are docile, hardy and good egg layers. They have a flat rose comb and sturdy legs.

Topaz the top girl

Sparkle the second in command

Topaz and Sparkle are also named for their looks and are top girl and second girl in the pecking order.

We got them at the beginning of April 2014 and they very quickly settled in and established their top status.

Topaz is a good top hen because she doesn’t stand any nonsense and none of the girls ever contest her but at the same time she never bullies.

Sparkle laid from her very first day with us and has remained our best layer since. She lays an average of five eggs a week.

Topaz on the other hand didn’t lay until three months later and after laying three eggs over a two week period stopped altogether. I have no idea why she isn’t laying. She is happy and healthy with a red comb and not moulting so it’s a bit of a mystery.

Topaz is at the moment our loudest girl. She shouts every time any of the girls goes into the nest box as well shouting on occasions when she herself has been in the nest box but not laid an egg.

Sparkle preens all the time. I know they all preen a lot but Sparkle preens much more than the others.

They don’t run to me when I stoop down like Amber and Honey but they are completely confident with me and will allow to me to touch them or get right up close to them. They take no notice of me moving around them and if they are in my way and I go to gently move them aside they will lean into me.

Bantam game

There are many varieties of bantam game birds and they come in many colours.

They are curious birds and can be tamed. They are not good layers and can tend to be broody. They make good mothers.

Toffee

Emerald

I got these girls at the beginning of June 2014 and they settled into the flock within a few days which was my quickest integration yet.

They went in at the bottom of the pecking order with Emerald at the bottom.

Toffee has partridge markings while Emerald has a glossy green and purple sheen to her feathers which is why I called her Emerald. She has some silky mixed in her background which gives her the feathers on her legs. Emerald has the tiniest comb I have ever seen and no lobes, this apparently is typical of her breed.

These breeds have long necks and are almost bottle shaped with their round shoulders. They have very prominent crops too. They seem able to bring their neck in and then when they want to they stretch it out.

Toffee is the most shy of my girls and doesn’t like us to get too close to her. Emerald on the other hand is like Amber and Honey and will run to us if we stoop down. She is the easiest girl to pick up.

Emerald is also very inquisitive and always wants to see what I am doing. When I open the store cabinet she will jump from the coop roof to the top of the store cabinet then put her head in looking at the sunflower seed box. She is an entertaining girl.

Emerald stretching her neck towards the sunflower seed tub

Both these girls had been used as broodies for the farmer and Emerald laid one egg on her second day with us and then started to moult. Toffee started laying three weeks later (which is the usual time span after being broody) and laid five eggs in ten days then started moulting.

It is also usual for them to go into the moult after being broody. There have been masses of feathers from both these girls and yet they still look good. I think the new feathers must already be through by the time the old ones fall out.

I am hopeful that if these girls moult at different times I may then still get some eggs when the other girls are moulting.

Bantam brown leghorns

They originated in Italy and the white variety first reached Britain from America around 1870 and the brown followed a couple of years later.

They are a very sprightly and alert breed. They have a single floppy comb and long, feather free legs.

They are prolific egg layers and rarely go broody. The eggs are white and laid throughout the year.

They can be rather noisy and like to roost high. They will roost in the top of trees given the chance.

Peaches and Barley

I got Peaches and Barley in June 2014 at six weeks old. I named them for their peach coloured breasts.

I was going to integrate them slowly because of their young age but by the third week they kept digging under their gate to join the main flock. I decided that as they were desperate to join the flock that I would let them and to my surprise there was no trouble at all.

They are very speedy and if the girls ran at them they would soon get out of the way and never actually got pecked at all.

They do like to perch up high and from their first night they would find the highest spot to roost.

At ten months old they still have their baby cheeping sound and they are cheeping all the time. I am not sure if this is just because they are chicks or if they will turn out to be noisy. We will have to wait and see.

They were very skittish at first but are now getting braver around me and braver around the rest of the flock. They are growing fast and have long legs and big feet for their size. Their comb is also growing quickly.

They should start laying around November to December. It will be good to have two good egg layers as the rest of the flock aren’t very good egg layers apart from Sparkle and her eggs are very small.

I will do an update on Peaches and Barley when they are fully grown and laying eggs and I will add a portrait of them as adults.

I love this diverse flock and they all get on happily together which is lovely to see.

Amber has been improving day by day. Her swollen face was returning back to normal and her feathers were growing back in. Her face and comb were red again.

I know that pin feathers are very tempting to the girls and sometimes get pulled out. When the girls moult as Emerald and Toffee are at the moment the new pin feathers push the old feathers out. This means that by the time the old feathers have fallen out the new ones are already in underneath and they never actually have bare patches.

Because Amber was plucked it is rather different and the pin feathers are on show and are a temptation. My husband saw Honey attempt to take a pin feather from Amber’s neck but Amber pecked Honey twice on the comb and Honey backed off. This was a good sign I thought.

But then there was a change that I have been dreading. Amber had become much more vocal over the last few days, her comb was bright red and she was looking in the nest box. I knew she was ready to start laying again.

I dreaded it because this is always the cause of a problem for Amber and I have been enjoying her good health while not laying.

Sure enough she went into her usual decline and looked unwell for a day which I knew meant an egg was coming. The awful part of this story is that while unwell and vulnerable she no longer resisted Honey and very quickly her neck was plucked bare again.

I felt so frustrated as the pin feathers had just started opening, looking like little paddles, so nearly there.

Amber has pin feathers on her neck

This was a few days ago and since then the feathers had started to open.

Amber’s neck is bare again

This is such a shame and she may now have to stay like this until she moults. At least she still has her head feathers though and her face has returned to normal. She actually looks really good now despite her bare neck.

I was a bit panicked about the feather plucking returning but I have been reading that pin feathers can be really tempting to flock mates and hope it’s just the combination of that and Amber being under the weather.

During the bedtime routine as the girls were beginning to take their positions I checked in several times as usual. Amber was on the top of the store cabinet with Topaz and Sparkle.

Then I noticed a broken soft shelled egg on the patio below the store cabinet. I quickly cleaned it up and Amber was instantly back to normal and headed off to the food dish.

Another egg safely passed and everything back to normal for now. I think my next move is to talk to the vet about the possibility of an injection to stop her laying.

While she wasn’t laying she was happy and healthy and even growing feathers but as soon as she starts laying the problems start again. It is such a shame. We were enjoying her not laying. Seeing how well she has been while not laying really makes me consider what our options are to make her life better.

The chicks have now slept with the main flock for the last three nights as well as spending their days with them so I think we can safely say integration is complete.

There have been no problems and they are one happy flock together.

Therefore I decided that today I would return the run back to it’s normal “one flock” position. I swept and cleaned and washed all the feed and water bowls. I then moved the chick’s coop back to the patio area as another nest box. While it has been in the chick’s area (three weeks) it has never once been used as a nest box. It is as if the patio area is nest box area only and a nest box any where else doesn’t count. Luckily as only a few girls are laying at the moment this didn’t cause any problems.

I then removed the tiled feeding station and dug it over. I returned the food and water dish to their usual position on the patio and left a couple of extra small food dishes too.

I then took down the chick’s flower pot umbrella and cane perch.

The run is now back to normal

This now means the girls have more space in the right hand triangular part of the run which they like as it has the big bush in there.

The chick’s coop is now another nest box in the left hand corner

When I went in before bedtime tonight the girls were all in their usual bedtime positions.

The bedtime positions

Every night Emerald preens the feathers on her legs. I only see her do this at bedtime and it just seems to be part of her bedtime routine.

Emerald , Sparkle and Topaz are in their usual positions.

While it’s hot Emerald and Sparkle always stand for a while. I have been pouring a can of water over the patio beneath them to help to cool the area.

Toffee, Honey and Amber are in their positions

Peaches and Barley in their position

It is lovely having the run back as one large area and having the flock all together and happy. I am very pleased at how smoothly the integration has gone. I have now got one happy flock.

Emerald has a lovely character. She is people friendly and isn’t bothered by us getting close to her. She is the only one of the girls that I can pick up easily. She is inquisitive and will follow me around and always wants to see what I am doing.

Toffee by comparison is the most people shy. She doesn’t like us to get close to her and is the most difficult of the girls to pick up.

All the girls know where the treats are and come running when I open the cabinet door. Emerald though takes it a bit further.

As soon as I open the store cabinet door Emerald jumps to the coop roof

She then jumps to the top of the cabinet

She then stretches her neck to the sunflower seed box

She reminds me of Pepper and Dotty when they used to do this. None of the other little girls do this and I know if she could get that lid off she would help herself.

One day as I took the lid off the box she jumped onto my wrist and started helping herself  to the seeds from the box. She is so cheeky and I had to shoo her down.

I love this funny girl.

It has been three weeks since Amber’s face swelled up. We think she was pecked on the face and it became infected. It was one of the many times we thought we were going to lose her. Her face and comb was very pale.

Amber is a fighter and keeps bouncing back. Her behaviour is completely normal. Her face and comb are red again and the swelling on her face has gone down a bit. Best of all she is growing back her feathers.

This was Amber just two weeks ago:

Poor little Amber

This is Amber today:

Amber has feathers coming through

Her face is looking better

Okay, she does look scruffy but that is just because her feathers are coming through. Her face and comb is a much better colour and the only swollen bit of her face now is just above her beak rather than her whole face. She will look even better when her feathers are properly in.

Strangely enough none of this has effected her status in the pecking order. She still bosses Honey, Toffee and Emerald as well as the chicks. Only Topaz the top girl and Sparkle the second in command are above her and even they never bother her. Amber seems to be able to sit next to any girl in the flock without ever being bothered.

None of the girls seem to notice what an odd little thing she looks and as always she maintains her feisty character. While often appearing so fragile Amber is a tough little cookie.

Last night I checked the girls before bedtime and was surprised to find that both chicks were with the big girls.

The main flock were all in their usual positions.  Barley was on the new, narrower, more favoured perch. Peaches was on the high, thicker perch. Peaches looked stressed as she doesn’t like the thicker perch but she couldn’t work out to get off it (we will change this to a narrower perch when we find something more suitable).

Bedtime positions

Peaches was looking stressed

I felt she would be much happier next to Barley. I gently lifted her from her position and put her on the perch next to Barley and she settled and looked happier.

Peaches was much happier next to Barley

We have been experiencing unusually high temperatures at the moment. I had decided that last night I would let the girls roost on the perches as I worried that they would be too hot in the coop.

The run is predator proof and although I normally prefer the girls be in the coop the night before I had woken up at half past three feeling really hot despite sleeping by an open window. I had started to worry about how hot the girls were and went out to them with a torch and opened the door to the chicks coop and removed the side panel from the big girls coop.

We decided that during the few nights it’s forecast to be exceptionally hot it would be safer to leave the girls out.

However at half past two in the morning we were woken up by a terrific storm. There was lots of overhead thunder and lightening as well as heavy rain.

Again I went out to the girls by torch light. I lifted them all down from the perches and put them in the coop. I was afraid the storm would frighten them and felt happier to know they were safe in the coop and I knew they would only be in there for a couple of hours before the automatic door opened at first light.

This morning when I went out all the girls were happy in the run together and everything was fine and the air was, thankfully, cooler.

I went out at five o’clock this morning to make sure the chicks were okay with the main flock. Everything was fine with no bother at all.

I put lots of dishes of mash around the run at mid morning to make the sure the chicks were feeding okay. I watched over them to make sure they got their fair share and it all went well. I checked on them through out the day and they all seem to be getting along fine.

If the big girls run at the chicks the chicks are so fast that they soon evade them and they know all the escape routes and high perches so they are able to keep themselves out of harms way.

I am really pleased how well it is going. I will do the same tonight as last night and help the chicks to their flower pots if they look stressed. I think they are pretty much one flock now and they all seem happy to get along which is great.

Yesterday we got back from our deliveries at lunch time and found that one of the chicks had dug under the gate and was in with the main flock.

There didn’t seem to be any problem and she was sat one side of the wire with the other chick sat next to her on the other side of the wire.

It was tempting to leave her be but we needed to go out at half past one to do a B.B.Q at a school for two hundred people and knew we wouldn’t be back until seven o’clock. I didn’t want to be worrying about what was happening while I was out so I decided to return her to her own side of the run.

I filled the hole under the gate then distracted the main flock with some pieces of apple. I then held open the chicks gate and good as gold in she went.

This did make me think that the chicks were ready for integration though so I decided to put them all together this afternoon after lunch.

I opened up both of the gates and then also lifted the wire and secured it with garden wire at the corner by the patio. I also lifted the wire at the far end of the run and secured that too with garden wire. This means the chicks can’t get trapped in any corners and will always have an escape route.

There was no pecking but the the girls in the main flock would run at the chicks and the chicks would run and find any of the high perches or go on to the table by the bush. I was a bit worried that they would spend all their time hiding and maybe not be eating properly.

By late afternoon though the chicks were eating from their dish on their usual side of the run and the other girls were taking no notice of them.

I also changed all the feeders to growers pellets as the chicks shouldn’t have layers pellets. As some girls are moulting and most are not laying it may actually be quite good for the main flock to have the higher protein growers pellets. Emerald and Toffee are moulting and Amber is growing feathers so this could be helpful to them. Topaz isn’t laying either and only Sparkle and Honey are laying so this is an ideal time for this change.

I decided if the chicks roost in their usual spot on the flower pots I will put them in their own coop as usual but if they roost with main flock I will put them in the main coop and go out at first light tomorrow morning to make sure they are all okay.

I checked on them several times at the time that they usually get into their bedtime positions.

The main flock are in their usual bedtime positions

Amber, Honey and Toffee are on the newest and most favoured perch, Sparkle and Topaz (you can just see her head on the right hand side of Sparkle) are on the cabinet and Emerald as always is on the shoe box.

Peaches really looked like she wanted to join the big girls but Barley just wanted to go to her usual familiar flower pot.

Peaches went to the coop roof

Barley went to her flower pot

Sparkle lets Peaches know she is not welcome on the cabinet

Peaches didn’t know where to go next. The coop roof isn’t high enough to satisfy her but the next step is the top of the cabinet and Sparkle was making it clear that she was not welcome there.

Peaches gives up for now and leaves the coop roof and  goes to the wooden block.

Peaches then drinks from the big girl’s water

Peaches makes it to the high perch

Peaches once again went to the coop roof then briefly to the cabinet before being chased off and then found the high perch.

Peaches isn’t sure about her position here

Peaches was very unsettled here. I think she is used to a flatter roosting position and this perch is quite thick for her feet to hold on to. She didn’t seem at all happy and kept returning to the cabinet.

I wanted to get a shot of her on the cabinet but she was chased off so quickly that this was the shot that I got.

Peaches is chased from the cabinet by Sparkle

Peaches was then marching up and down the high perch looking stressed. She didn’t want to stay there but didn’t know how to leave.

I decided to try to help her and although I wasn’t sure if she would let me lift her down I felt I had to try. I picked her up (easily much to my surprise) and took her to the flower pots. I put her on the flower pot next to Barley.

I wasn’t sure if she would stay there but she settled and started to preen. I checked back half an hour later and both chicks were settled happily together on their flower pot as usual.

I have been putting the girls in the coop at ten o’clock but as it was really hot today I decided to leave it until eleven o’clock when it was cool.

I lifted the chicks from their flower pots and put them in their little coop then lifted the other girls to the main coop with ease.

I will be out at five o’clock in the morning to let the chicks out as usual and if they all seem happy together I will leave them together.